The AM Forum

The Oregon Office of Emergency Management said Wednesday reports are coming in from radio and television stations around the state — and most say they didn't get the signal, or did not get it well. ;D

go figure, even OWIN was a flop and the governor pulled the rug from under it. ;D

Craig,

OWIN: Orphans and Widows in Need

Well, you're on the left coast now, Craig. Give 'em time.  ;)

From what I could tell monitoring numerous stations on AM, FM, and local TV, it went pretty well here in NC. Sounded no different than the typical EAS weekly test. The only thing I did notice was a slight time lag, some stations were still broadcasting the message after the station(s) I was monitoring had moved back to programming. Spun the dials on both AM and FM receivers and heard the tail end of the same message.

I did note that cable stations and at least one FM station carrying syndicated programming did not broadcast the actual test, despite mentioning it.

Not bad for a first try in this neck-o-the-woods.

didn't hear it here but they have them about once a week at 2 AM or so. It's enough to wake up the dead! I hate it.

What's worse is the new rule where all hams must be tied into the alert system. Everyone who is operating at the time, must re transmit the waring signal no matter what mode your running!

??? ??? ??? ??? ???

Alabama test worked surprisingly in Montgomery only, failed everywhere else in Alabama.

best plan in the west; "Beans & Bullets"

Arizona TV carried something at the right time.  It was doubled with alert data over the voice segment.

Pure schniznit.

Makes me glad I'm not in the full-time broadcst business anymore.... :P

73DG

It was a little late here. The audio was terrible. The local cable service did not come back right away. Instead the screen showed "SONY DVD" for several minutes.  ;D

That only applies if you live on the planet Parsipatus in the country of Gnome.

Was this what you got?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6gz1oQVBkw

HA! I bet someone jack-legged some POS OTA DVD into their system and took the command signals to interrupt normal programming.
My DirecTV went through the motions, but I never heard any announcement. There was some sort of audio way down in the background noise, and then the usual blurps of digital signals. A Michael Jackson song played at other times.
Fred

My brother is chief engineer for a radio station in SE Virginia and says things went okay except for the audio quality, as relayed over multiple paths.

A website has some audio airchecks from around the country and discussion:

http://www.thebdr.net/articles/fcc/eas/eas.html

This is what it sounded like here.  ;D

No, I've been getting a lot of this instead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0rgOEKX4s

A few years back, when I was CE at KJZZ-KBAQ, one of the "lesser" engineering types sent a RMT, or monthly EAS test.  

He mistakenly fired off a tsunami alert.  Funny thing was, it was for the Phoenix AZ area.... ::)

73DG

It was a LOT more fun back when... :D

http://www.thebdr.net/images/Conelrad-TheBigQuestion.mp3

Ha!

73DG

In the late 60s I worked a short time for Westinghouse. One of the projects I worked on was BC band Conelrad receivers that were unmuted by a series of transmitted tones.  The final tone kept the receiver unmuted.  They were used for alert messages.  One model was set up with relays instead of audio output.  The relays were used to activate sirens or horn alerts.

The receiver had no controls on the front.  They were tuned to a single frequency with a set audio output.  The only thing on the front was a button to unmute it for testing.  They used two ferrite loop antennas, set at right angles to make them omni directional.

Fred

As I remember it was a gov contract.  I think these receivers were intended to be used by first responders.  Probably not called first responders back then.

Fred

Reminds me of one of my co-workers at Fleetwood back around the time of the Three Mile Island thing. He came up with this:

"This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. If this were an actual Three Mile Island type emergency, you would be instructed to tune to whatever stations may be left in your area for emergency instructions. In all probability, those instructions will be to put your head between your legs and kiss your a** goodbye. This is only a test."

When I was in elementary and jr high school (back in the 60s) we used to have "cvil defense" drills. This was where they would take all of the knds down into the basement area (usually stuffed old desks and other unused materials) and instruct us to basically (put your head between your legs and kiss your a$$ goodbye) kneel down by the walls and under the desks and hope for the best. Knowing what I/we now know as adults, that was the last place to be, but it sounded good.

This way, if the big one came, we were allready pre-buried.

They did a lot to keep the threat alive in our minds for many years.

Or how many of y'all remember the advertisement on TV (black & white TV too boot) of Niketa Kruschev shaking his fist while hollering "We will bury you" ? ? ?

The 60s were a very interesting time in history.

I never heard a thing in Tum Tum....The gubmit can't even get a space shuttle audio signal out nationwide...If this was the acrudamy awards, or a rap concert,you wouldn't have any trouble receiving it.. I feel so confident..They have the finest minds in the country working on this....I wonder how much this fiasco cost us?   

When I was in elementary school, in the 50's, all the kids had a personal asbestos tile to sit in during the drills.   It was to keep are little butts warm when sitting in the cold marble floors in the hallway.

Apparently the "KISS" principle never applies to anything the government tried to do... 

Good one!

Thank God? it was only a test. Listening to the samples from the above link (FCC), didn't sound like too many people heard much of anything that made sense.

I'm guessing this was not using internet technology?? WHAT IF a National emergency and the whirl wide web is down???
Fred

In Dallas, we got the picture and the tones but no other audio.  :P :P

Mike

Fred,

Beans & Bullets,

Craig,

EAS has an originating station located at some emergency management thing in each state that feeds what are called LP stations, at least two. LP1 and LP2 all the other stations in a set geographic aria are required to listen to the two LP stations. The EAS box transmits what they tell me are called Fips or something like that codes, the 555 baud, who knows how they came up with that burst that you hear first in groups of three. This is all fuzzy to me because whenever they describe or explain it to me my eyes glaze over. Each fips code has a message identifier that tells you what type of message it is and a time stamp to tell you when it's sent. The TFT EAS systems that I work with sit there and listen to the two LP stations and when a message comes in the decoder reads the fips code and if it’s the first time it has received it stores the audio for the message on a digital audio recorder. Then depending on how you have your box set up it can rebroadcast the message with new fips codes playing the message. The EAS decoder has the ability to directly interrupt the program audio and play back the previously recorded message. Much controversy is around if you put the decoders ability before or after you audio processing, I have mine stuck before on the FM stations and after on the AM. Because the EAS decoder reads the Fips codes if the same message arrive on the other station you're monitoring it ignores the message because it has already run it, unless it’s a Sage EAS decoder then it just keeps repeating the message every time it arrives. Nobody knew that wood happen, go figure.  Along with setting your stations indent and the local clock on the EAS decoder you can also set the box on what type of announcements you will and will not allow it to pass. There are about a hundred different fips codes for events from severe thunderstorm or severe winter weather to exotic codes for volcanic activity or tidal waves. Being on the coast we have our EAS decoders listening to the LP1 and LP2 stations for Maryland and also monitor NOAA weather and we allow the system to rebroadcast tornado and maybe one or two other type of events automatically. There is one fips code that you have no choice and have to rebroadcast that announcement eminently, that’s the one they used for this last test. In addition to all this the system also receive and generate required weekly test and being that one of my stations is a LP for the eastern shore of Maryland we receive and send a required monthly test that all the stations have to log. I am 100% cretin I screwed up a lot of this in my description and all of the people who know better can come in and explain it properly, now day I primarily deal with transmitter sites and try to stay as far away from the studio operations as possible. Certainly is different from the old EBS system and the Red Authenticator Envelopes.

RF

Say what?  ;)

73DG